No-knead bread

Originally published by Mark Bittman (NYT); my sister introduced me to this bread at a holiday gathering. It’s a fairly wet flour/salt/water yeast dough, stirred by hand or with a wood spoon. Should rise 24 hrs, but a bit shorter is OK. The key to a nice crust is to bake in a pre-heated covered dutch oven (or similar), and remove the cover for the last half of the baking. Baking in the covered dutch oven traps the steam, which helps make a nice crispy-and-brown crust.

The original recipe (from the 2010s) was in the NYT. Various improvements and adaptations since then. I’m using Kenji Lopez-Alt’s variation, see https://www.seriouseats.com/better-no-knead-bread-recipe. This recipe is from that website:

• 300 grams (10.5 ounces, about 2 cups) bread flour or all-purpose flour
• 4.5 grams (about 3/4 teaspoon) salt
•  3 grams (about 0.5 teaspoons) yeast
•  210 grams (7.5 ounces, about 1 cup minus 1.5 tablespoons) water
• Some cornmeal or grits
•  By weight (mass): 100 parts flour, 1.5 parts salt, 1 part instant yeast, and 70 parts water.
• I did 400 grams flour, 6 grams kosher salt, 4 grams yeast, 280 grams water
• I generally add about 1 tbsp olive oil to the dough after making the dough
• I prefer less salt (maybe use 1 part salt to 100 parts flour) than in the Serious Eats recipe

This video playlist demonstrates the steps

Making the dough: In a large mixing bowl: Mix flour, yeast, and salt (use a wooden spoon). Add water. Stir until all the flour is incorporated; this is going to be a sticky dough. If the dough seems a bit thick, add a bit of water (flour has some moisture content—at altitude, flour may be a bit drier. “A bit” means a tablespoon or so). The dough does want to be sticky and wet. At this point, I add the oil and give a final stir.

 Let the dough rise: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (or the appropriate cover). Let rise at room temperature 12-24 hrs.

 Now, the Serious Eats website goes into a whole thing about putting the bowl in the refrigerator to give an additional “cold rise” time for 2-3 more days—I’m too lazy…

 Bake: (use oven gloves/mitts and tongs as needed!)

·       Put your dutch oven (and cover) in your oven. Preheat to 450 F (or even 500 F, if your oven and dutch oven can handle that).

·       While the oven is heating: If you have baking parchment paper, put a sheet on your counter.  Sprinkle a bit of flour or cornmeal on the paper, dump the dough on top of the paper. Pat into a shape that will fit the dutch oven. Sprinkle a bit more flour on the dough.

o   The website instructs you to shape the dough and let rise again, but this is also from refrigerated dough. I don’t bother.

o   If you have a well-seasoned dutch oven or nonstick, you don’t need the parchment paper

·       After the oven has come to temperature: Take the dutch oven out. Uncover. Pick up the parchment paper with the dough, and put in the dutch oven. If you want to make a decorative slash on the dough, now is the time. Cover the dutch oven and put back in the oven.

o   If you have a well-seasoned dutch oven: You can sprinkle a couple of pinches of cornmeal at the bottom of the dutch oven, and just dump the dough directly into the dutch oven. The cornmeal will give a nice rustic look to the bottom of the loaf

•  If you’d set the oven for more than 450 F: Reduce to 450 F.
• Bake for 30 minutes (covered). Remove the cover.
• If you’d set for convection bake: Think about turning off the convection when you remove the cover.
• Bake an additional 15-20 minutes—or until the crust gets to the color you like.
• Remove dutch oven from oven, turn off the oven.
• Remove the bread (use tongs, or just upend the bread) and place on a rack. You may need to wait a few minutes before you can remove the bread from the dutch oven. Let cool at least 15 minutes on a rack before slicing.